Jimmy Fallon’s ratings in his first couple weeks as host of The Tonight Show have been pretty great, and if this new report from TMZ is to be believed, NBC is trying to use the ratings success as leverage to keep guests who want to keep appearing on the show from appearing… well, anywhere else.

Sources connected to CBS, NBC and ABC tell TMZ … the Peacock network believes Jimmy Fallon’s ratings success gives them extreme bargaining power. They put the word out to celebs, agents and publicists … if they want to be on Fallon they can’t appear on ANY other network … and not just shows that go head-to-head with Jimmy, but morning shows as well. […]

A GMA source tells TMZ … they’ve already gotten fallout from people they were trying to book.

I have no idea if this is true. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s been going on behind-the-scenes forever between bookers and publicists, but it’s blowing up now because there’s a big fancy new host. Who knows? It’s from TMZ, after all. They have the same relationship with facts that most children have with vegetables: accept that they exist, then choose to disregard them. The only reason I’m posting the story here at all is because I kind of love the idea of NBC sending old-timey goons in pinstripe suits to the Tonight Show green room to corner, like, Fun. and say, “Awful nice Tonight Show appearance you got here. Be a shame if something … happened to it.” If that’s how this is going down, fine. Carry on.

Lisa de Moraes has reported that Lorne Michael’s is trying to streamline NBC booking. Basically if you want to promote on NBC, you agree to appear on a package of NBC shows, ie Tonight, Late Night, Today, SNL, etc. It gives the celebrity multiple forums to promote with one network booking, and NBC keeps them off of GMA and Letterman.

If I remember Leno had this practice in the early 90s when he took over from Carson. It was not a directive from Leno himself but either his female manager or producer. It was directed specifically at Letterman back then.

As others said, it was a Leno producer and the thing that irritated people was that he played dumb and acted like it was out of his hands (and she wasn’t particularly well liked by NBC which is why she ultimately got the boot).

Aw no. This is seriously going to limit how many places we can see his AMAZING FRIENDS, DREW BARRYMORE… (so great… she’s so great…) CAMERON DIAZ…. (unbelievable… she’s the best..) and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE! (omigod you guys… he’s the best…)

Yet another libturd rumor started to assure top one rating for his first two weeks. Fallon is a joke, no really he is a joke. Good guest dry up quicker then his face crème. Childish but normal for a liberal show to try to block by bullying. Oh, sorry are they not against bullying? Me dumb or not? Hypocrites at their finest.

Jimmy Kimmel is a whole lot funnier. When Leno left I started to watch different late night shows and Kimmel , and even Letterman is a whole lot funnier during my switching channels . I guess Leno had me dazed for years. I like guys who like cars, guns, apple pie and America as it was , not as it has become. Yep, just another knuckle dragging smarty pants here. Oh, crap , I got libturd juice on my new pants.